Matchday Thread Partick Th -V- Inverness CT

[+DoofersDad]

According to the BBC website we had just 2 attempts on goal.  Yet when interviewed after the game Yogi claimed we controlled the game in the first half and played some really good stuff!  Hmm.

 

With Utd's stuttering form since they lost their 2 most creative players in the transfer window we really should be out of sight in 3rd by now - but we aren't.  If we had emulated our neighbours over the last 6 games we would now be sitting on 64 points - 2 behind Celtic, 3 ahead of Aberdeen and a massive 18 ahead of Utd!  Instead, Dundee utd are only 7 points behind with a game in hand.  Now that they are out of both cups and have been well and truly battered by Celtic they have the opportunity to regroup and focus on chasing 3rd spot.  Given where we are we ought to be playing with confidence and attacking freedom but instead we've had a run of lacklustre performances.  It looks as though we don't know how to set up as an attacking unit since Billy left and we don't have the confidence to be creative.

 

We now face Dundee before having to contend with both Aberdeen and Celtic before the split.  We really need a positive attacking performance against Dundee to gain a bit of confidence before a very challenging run of games

[davie]

It was pretty frustrating yesterday, watching two teams struggle to find a decent pass on a pitch that was rock hard. Greg Tansey must have  been tearing his hair out by the way that the ball just skited off the suface any time it was hit. Yogi was right about the first half DD, we did dominate it in terms of space, passing etc. but didn't create anything. That (I think) was why we increasingly lumped the ball forward, which Watkins found as easy to control as a cat on fire. It wasn't a great day at the office, let's see what the game v Dundee brings. The good side to this is that we lost no ground on Dundee Utd, and just the point to Aberdeen so it could have been worse. Although we have a tough run of games coming up, I suspect Utd have just as difficult a run to be faced with much less justified optimism as us.

[Sneckboy]

There's Something About Mary.....hill.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Surely the bottom line is (hopefully) that Yogi tried something different against a team who appears to have had us Sussed for ages. As in the cup it may have been the plan to go fer the jugular early doors. But again surely he must have altered the system at some stage during the second period or did we sit for a point or a breakaway goal ?

[Sneckboy]

At least we didn't pick up any bookings! And it seems Brill has recovered sufficiently to be included in the squad again.

We had a player, Tarmo Kink, making his league debut, and we again halved Partick's winning margin over us in the league this season (4 goals, 2 goals, 1 goal) - so surely we're sussing them out!?

No positives?!

[RiG]

How do you dominate in terms of space? At the end of the day we can play more passes than he opposition but we need to create chances to score goals yesterday and that needs working on because we barely created anything of note yesterday.

Edited March 22, 2015 by RiG

[Eagle4Caley]

Another crap result and another season where we start to falter near the winning post. I can't recall our last good performance.

 

Well St Mirren away was excellent, the first half was like watching Barcelona!

[alternative maryhill]

Surely the bottom line is (hopefully) that Yogi tried something different against a team who appears to have had us Sussed for ages. 

 

This is a fair point, and Partick definitely didn't look even half the team that did us 3-1 and 4-0 earlier in the season, which the rejigged system may have had something to do with. We defended pretty well; the problem was, as others have already said, that we created almost nothing: I can't remember a more toothless final-third performance from us. There was a definite sense of us missing Mckay yesterday: Watkins' default mode as a striker seems to be to look for balls over the top or defence-splitting passes to run on to; Mckay was much more adept at dropping deep, holding the ball up to bring our wider players into play, then getting into the box to look for the cross or return ball.

 

In the run-in, and especially with the cup semi approaching, I'd personally like to see Hughes revert to a more traditional 4-4-2, with Watkins and Doran functioning as wingers, Ofere as a target man with one of Christie, Williams and Ross off him (all three have generally done well since the turn of the year, but I think we can look a little narrow and a little lightweight when they all start), Tansey and Draper in the middle, and our usual first choice back four. If Doran doesn't look up to it then either Ross or Williams could arguably play that position, but imho, if we're going to hurt opponents then we need to start taking  them on more directly in the final third. In particular, I think we need to find some way of pressing better and increasing the pace of our attacking when we meet Celtic, who are a different proposition from the team we beat earlier in the season, and this formation should, in theory, allow us to do that.      

 

Edited March 22, 2015 by alternative maryhill

[WYNESS101]

Only yogi knows why we played with three CB yesterday. Devine has done fine to fill in when called upon but we need to play our best defence when we can.

Esson

Raven Meekings Warren Shinnie

Draper Tansey

Watkins Christie Williams

Ofere

I would have went with that line up. Only decent thing to take away from the game was Brill being on the bench lets hope he's fit enough for the Dundee game

[Northern_jaggie]

It was quite frustrating to watch.

We had 5 defenders on who were told not to overload attacks and they didn't contribute to putting balls in the box. The midfield didn't link with Marley who really isn't a striker. The duo of Williams and Christie were always outnumbered by the extra man in midfield. The team were told not to counter attack. Because Partick (and other teams) know we like to play short passes they gear up and diffuse this by committing more bodies to the man in possession knowing we won't apply a long raking pass to a man in space, once we get hounded the ball goes long. In short, this makes for a stuffy and congested game with as much attacking ambition as 4-6-0.

we had such a strong bench yesterday I didn't think Devine needed to be in the back line. We could have played 4-5-1 with Doran and Marley on the wings with Ofere up top without Partick causing any more damage than they did.

[Kingsmills]

 

 

Even if we do get beat...tis ok, with Dundee Utd getting beat and the Sheep only getting 1 pt, so, could be worse

 

Its all well and good to say that but we have now said that the last few weeks 

 

Sitting 3rd in the league, approaching April, and people still find something to be negative about. 

 

That might just be because getting beaten yet again by a very mediocre Partick side is something to be negative about.

[12th Man]

Highlights are on ALBA right now

[+HawkeyeTheGnu]

Highlights are on ALBA right now

Short programme tonight?

[RiG]

The highlight of this match day for me was being given a free ticket by Caley100 which was awfully good of him

[Sneckboy]

...and you've taken until now to show your gratitude!!

[RiG]

I've had limited access to the site since my laptop died on Monday night (RIP Sweet Prince)

[Sneckboy]

I've had limited access to the site since my laptop died on Monday night (RIP Sweet Prince)

My sympathies! It's awful when that happens.

This will make you feel better -

A couple of years ago my laptop started making crunching noises which sounded ominous. Wasn't sure if it was 'just' the fan or the dreaded hard-drive about to fail. Wasn't overly concerned as everything was saved to an external HDD, so just persevered. A few weeks later, it wouldn't switch on - not even a blue scree or an option of a 'safe load up'. Nothing - it was kaput.

However, no problem. Simply back-up my saved stuff from the HDD to my new laptop.

Plugged it in.

Was too busy familiarising myself with the 'newness' that I paid little attention to the pop-up 'new hardware detected - format disc?' notice and pressed YES, rejoicing in how straightforward it all was!

There I was thinking it was loading all my stuff onto  my new laptop, when it was actually deleting, from the HDD, over 10 years of religiously saved AND backed-up documents/photos etc 

 

I still get a 'sick' feeling in my stomach thinking about it!

Then came the pain, time and effort and wasted money on 'sophisticated' data retrieval software - none of which worked.....

[caley100]

...and you've taken until now to show your gratitude!!

I'll get my thanks in the Innes bar....